Amherst College Global Education Blog
The other day I was WhatsApping (text via wifi, the best app ever) my mom. I was telling her about my day and mentioned that I was going to go read in the park then head home. She replied that it nice to hear me calling my homestay “home.” I hadn’t noticed my casual use of the term, but her
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Hey everyone! For this week I’ll be writing a bit about what I’ve learned about the Japanese education system. I guess the most logical way to go about it is to go through chronologically, but an important distinction to make from the start is that their school year begins in April and ends in March, so long term breaks like
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Blog honesty moment: I’m writing this post instead of working on my art history paper. The paper that I’ve barely started. The paper that’s due in, approximately 36 hours. Now at Amherst, I’d be gnawing my elbow off with worry about that paper. But here abroad? It’s not bothering me too much. I know I’ll get it done. It probably won’t
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Back after two weeks! For this week’s blog I thought I would make a video showing what a day studying abroad in Japan might be like. This was on a Friday, so I just had Japanese class and then the rest of my day to venture around. Please turn on the subtitles and enjoy! Bear with my translations…I tried to
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Can We Talk about Race? “What is the percentage of blacks in the United States?” I definitely did not anticipate some of my classmates’ answers to this question in my class on race and ethnicity in the Americas in Chile. Thirty percent! Fifty percent! (What?) My reaction was immediately to jump in and assert that the black population was actually only
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I am taken by surprise with just how many festivals and celebrations I’ve encountered in Japan, especially in Kyoto. You’re sure to find a couple a month, even sometimes a couple on the same day, and it’s not too uncommon to randomly get caught in the middle of one while walking down a street. The great part is, many of
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Tadaima! I’m back! As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the last week traveling down to Okinawa, then up to Tokyo before returning on an overnight bus to Kyoto, arriving girigiri into Monday morning classes. It was nice having some time off before spiraling into these last few weeks of the semester, and luckily my program funds these
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This past weekend I traveled to Amsterdam, my first trip out of the Iberian Peninsula this semester! I flew there by myself, and spent two days exploring the city on my own before meeting up with another friend for the rest of the trip. Amsterdam is famous for being a liberal city, full of new opportunities, and that certainly proved
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Hey guys! This week I’ll be writing a bit about forms of art I’ve encountered so far during my time in Japan. It’s forced me to reflect on gigabytes of pictures and a 6 page bucketlist I’m still working through, so bear with me! My general impression of art in Japan, be it through music/entertainment/performance or more traditional forms such
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Hello readers! My name’s Omar and I am currently studying abroad with the Associated Kyoto Program (AKP) at Doshisha University in Japan. I decided that I would be coming to Japan by the Fall of my first year, but I wasn’t completely sure of when, for how long, or which part of the country I wanted to come to. My
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